The Difference Between Chapped Lips and Apple Chap Stick
by singingsin
Summary: Dean and Sam wake up to a very female Castiel, and suddenly the older hunter and the angel find it harder to shove their feelings towards each other, back into the shadows. Destiel AU
1. Chapter 1

"Dean...Dean! Wake up..."

Dean is doing his best to ignore the voice that's attempting to draw him out from his slumber.

He's a man that's been to hell and back, so sleep of any kind is rare, and it doesn't happen often. He survives mostly on cat naps, stolen moments in the Impala, dozing fitfully when he can manage to convince Sam to grab food, pump the gas, or rent their hotel room. When he does sleep, it's never for long.

He's accustomed to nightmares, sitting bolt upright at 3am in a cold sweat, shaken because the touch of Alistair's steel against his skin was so real just a moment ago, so _tangible_, that he always checks to see if he's actually bleeding.

He hasn't had an actual solid 8 hours in...well it feels like forever.

He's inclined to shoot at the owner of the voice first, and deal with the consequences later, but he can hear Sam in his head now, whining at him about making a mess in the hotel room. _'Blood doesn't come out of carpet Dean, god!'_ He envies his brother, the fact that he still has the ability to worry over such trivial things.

He groans into his pillow. This had best at least be worth getting up for.

Cracking his eyes gingerly, he finds himself staring up into blue eyes, getting caught in the depths of them for just a moment, like he always does. There's only one pair of eyes this shade of incandescent blue. Ah. Cas. His own personal angel, bearer of bad news and such. Fan-fucking-tastic.

"Really Cas?" He says gruffly, already entertaining the idea of punching the angel for the millionth time. It never hurts Castiel, but it relieves the irritation sometimes. And Cas usually heals his hand afterwards. "Dude, I was sleeping. Like real sleep." The angels breath ghosts over his cheek and he scrubs at his face, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "And Cas, We've discussed personal space a billion times..."

"I know. I apologize Dean. You were just sleeping very deeply, and I thought if I were closer, perhaps you'd hear me more clearly."

Dean rubs at his eyes with balled up hands, and blinks. He opens his mouth to say something sharp and biting to express his displeasure, but the sentiment dies on his lips. His eyes widen and Cas does his signature head tilt.

"What is the matter Dean?" Cas asks, voice tinged with curiosity.

"Castiel...is there a reason that you're...uh, a girl?"

Cas looks down at himself...herself, and then back to Dean. His..HER face flushes slightly, and Dean wonders how on earth he didn't notice the change in voice earlier.

"It's not really of import." Cas says gravely, and girl Castiel moves to wake Sam, who's snoring blissfully on the other twin bed.

"Uh dude, I strongly disagree! You did a total body swap! You had best fucking explain!" He demands, sitting up, and Castiel stares at him, pinning him down with those eyes and he sighs, this delicate, girly thing and it so fucking weird, that it sends a shiver down his spine, like someone just pressed cold hands into his skin.

"Very well. I will explain when Sam is awake." Is all he/she says and proceeds to wake up Sam, similar to the way he was woken up, except that Sam doesn't ease out of sleep, he sort of snaps out it, and upon seeing a strange girl hovering above him, he proceeds to jump out of his skin, calling Deans name, already whipping our Ruby's old knife and stabbing it into Cas' shoulder.

Cas frowns, and looks the handle protruding from his/her flesh, before yanking it out and handing it back to a very freaked out Sam.

"Hello Sam," Cas says in his signature monotone voice, an octave higher than they're used to. Sams jaw drops, and Dean swears he can see the wheels in his freakishly large head start to turn.

"C-Cas?" He stutters out finally, and Cas tilts his head again.

"Yes it's me," he/she says, a note of irritation creeping into his/her voice.

Sam looks to Dean, and Dean shrugs his shoulders.

"Dude, I don't fucking know. Don't ask me ask...her?" He points at Cas who sighs.

"Calm down boys. We have much to discuss..."


	2. Chapter 2

Cas licked the lips of his new vessel, put off about how soft they where in comparison to Jimmy's. Girls lips, still faintly tasting of the apple flavoured lip chap she favoured. He frowned. He didn't think he should even bother telling the boys. Sometimes they went a full month without calling upon him, so he could have very well gone the entire 2 weeks without informing them of his...situation.

But they were his friends, and he felt that they would appreciate the heads up in the long run. Still, he feels...awkward about it. It's an unpleasant feeling. He fiddles with a loose thread on the jacket that Adae had been wearing when he took her over (Adae is the name of this vessel) and sighs. He misses his trench coat, and briefly wonders if this vessel owns one. I'm not a trench coat kinda girl. Sorry, comes the answer, faintly from the back of his mind. His frown deepens, and he wishes that Dean and Sam would hurry back from the diner.

Despite his protest, they had both expressed an immediate need to eat and consume caffeine. And he knows by now, that protesting more than once, will end up with two cranky Winchesters, full "bitchfaces" on, and then no one will be happy. So he's waiting, trying to find the most efficient words to explain the complexities of the deal between vessels and angels.

He sighs. This vessel is still very much alert and aware, a side effect of taking over a vessel with a less than perfect blood trait. He can hear her singing to herself, a sweet song about hearts and putting them in a jar, and the name Christina Perri pops into his mind unbidden. Adae knows the song very well, and before long, he's humming along with her, his vessel taking over from memory.

"Dude, are you singing?" He hears Dean ask, and he jumps. He was so intent on mouthing the words along quietly, that he hadn't noticed that he had begun to sing too, and he certainly had not noticed the boys come back in.

"Uh, yes. This vessel is fond of singing," he admits and his cheeks heat up immediately. Another trait of Adaes, blushing easily, although now that he is aware of it, he's not sure if it's because he was caught in the act of singing or of it's because he's aware of Dean and Sam's presence. _They're not bad_, he hears Adae pipe up appreciatively._ Downright delicious actually, especially the shorter one. What was his name? Dean?_

**_This is not an appropriate sentiment at the current moment. Please don't interfere._** He thinks back almost violently, though he could not begin to know why. He's too emotional. This vessel is frustrating.

"What's up with this vessel anyways?" Sam speaks up, helping Castiel refocus on the task at hand.

"That's what I came to tell you about." He says, pitching his voice a bit lower. Adaes voice is too breathy and girlish for him, and at first, had him so disgruntled he'd nearly fallen from the sky and into oncoming traffic. She hasn't liked that, and had scolded him, told him if it bothered him so much, he could lower it. He was an angel wasn't he? He had felt foolish and irritated.

"Yeah, where's Jimmy at? Not that this vessel is hard on the eyes, but it's weird." Dean leans against the wall, eyes narrowed expectantly.

"Jimmy is...on a leave of absence." Cas says roughly, and looks down, away from Deans eyes. The brothers share a confused glance, and Cas knows he's going to have to explain further. He had hoped he wouldn't have to, that they would just accept it without question, but that's foolish if him, now isn't it? Of course they want more information. "When an angel and a vessel make a contract, the vessel is allowed to make a request in exchange. In Jimmy's case, it was that every year, he gets two weeks off, in order to celebrate his wife and daughters birthdays. They're within a week of each other." Dean snorts and both he and Sam glare at him.

"What!? Aww, c'mon! That's funny! Dude is basically on vacation! I find that amusing." Dean shrugs his shoulders defensively, and Cas just stares at him, tilting his head slightly in that way that he knows make Dean slightly uncomfortable.

"May I continue?"

"You mean there's more? Jesus, I should've made popcorn," Dean jokes again and this time Sam smacks his arm. "Ok, ok, sorry! Bitch."

"Jerk" Sam replies instantly, and both brothers can't help but grin at each other. Cas makes a frustrated noise in his throat, and the boys apologize. Cas clears his throat and continues.

"As I was saying, Jimmy will continue being my vessel after his allotted 2 weeks is up. Until then, I will be using this body. The vessels name is Adae Milton." He pauses before frowning. "She says hello."

"Whoa, wait, what? You can hear your vessel? I thought they were dormant while they're hosting you guys?" Sam says, concern immediately colouring his face. Cas rewards him with a small smile. Sam is always thinking of others well being, and that's what Cas likes the most about him.

"This is true. But Adae is a little different. She isn't my true vessel, so I am not as compatible with her. Her grip on her consciousness is harder to shake because of it. She cannot control her body, but she is very much present. She talks to me, sings.." He admits hesitantly.

"Isn't that dangerous? For her and you Cas?" Dean frowns, and takes a step towards him. "Won't you like, burn through her? When you got dragged back to heaven that time, I distinctly remember Jimmy saying it was like being chained to a comet."

"Yes, that is an apt description. But as I said, Adae is special. She isn't just a random person off the street. She's a distant relative of Jimmy Novak. They share the blood line trait through a great, great, great, grandfather. It's faint, but it will allow her to host me until Jimmy is able to continue his duty."

"Ok. Can't say I completely get it, but yeah, guess it explains the girl thing." Sam says after a moment. Dean chuckles.

"I kinda like it." He says, tucking his thumbs into his belt and walking up to Cas to get a better look. Cas goes completely still, and Adae purrs at the attention in his mind. "She's cute." Dean flashes Cas an almost predatory grin, and Sam makes a choking sound.

"Dean, do not go there. We get little enough sleep as it is, I don't want to have to listen to that on top of it."

It takes a moment for Castiel to understand what he means, but Adae is there, laughing, and she gets it immediately. She lets Cas in on the joke. _He totally wants to sex us up angel boy. He finds us attractive. Well, my body at least._ Cas makes a little squeak, a shiver of something he can't describe running down his spine. The idea of him and Dean, joining in the act of coitus, sends alarm bells going off everywhere, and he doesn't know what to do about it.

So he teleports.

He teleports far, _far away,_ from Dean Winchester, and into a random alley. His heart is hammering against his rib cage, and it feels like his skin is on fire. _Whoa, calm down!_ Adae laughs, and he wishes he could glare at her. She must sense this, so she calmly retreats further into her space, and he can almost picture her, easing into a recliner, book in hand, iPod tucked into a pocket. She won't bother him for now. Good. He needs time to decipher what these feelings are.

He teleports back to Adaes apartment, a cozy little thing in Vancouver, Canada. New Westminster, to be exact, in a tiny blue building. It has no elevator, the intercom doesn't work, and the front door key always gets stuck, but it's home, and the familiarity of it is relaxing, even to him. He could poof himself up to the third floor, which is where the apartment is, 303, but he walks up the four flights of steps instead. Adae likes her neighbours, and she has a cat, so she's asked him to at least keep up appearances for her, be somewhat normal, seeing as he made her take an unpaid vacation off of work or this.

Adaes little black cat, Ink, greets him at the door, winding around his feet. He scratches the furry creature lovingly. He's always liked cats, but you can't really keep animals in heaven. Ink purrs loudly. It's rare that an animal would even approach him, as most animals can sense that he is not of this world, and usually steer clear of him. It makes the cat even more endearing to him.

"A change of clothes perhaps," he says out loud, and suddenly Adae is at the forefront of his mind. _What's wrong with what I'm wearing?_ she demands.

It isn't exactly practical for hunting or fighting he thinks back at her, gesturing to the outfit he's currently wearing. They're dressed in a black skirt, blue and grey striped shirt, with a dark blue denim jacket and black converse. Cas assumes that it is appropriately stylish for a girl her age, but he would worry about being overly exposed in a fight. That, and he can't have Dean distracted by this body. A skirt just won't do.

After about an hour of arguing, they settle on jeans, a pair of black combat boots, a dark grey shirt with one Jimi Hendrix on it,(he's not quite sure who that is, but he's sure he'll get an earful all about that later) resplendent in purple, and a black woollen pea coat. Adae wants to add a purple scarf too, but Cas has to draw the line somewhere, and that's definitely it. All in all, it's not a trench coat, but it's much better than a skirt. He can work with that.


	3. Chapter 3

Cas makes an uncharacteristic squeak, turns bright pink, and poofs.

Dean knows he can't hear him, but he lets out a teasing sort of laugh for Cas. It's not everyday that he gets to ruffle the angels feathers so thoroughly. He also knows that if he were to turn around right now, Sam would be scowling at him. Bitch faces; his baby brother has cornered the market on those. Sam has one for every occasion, and Dean is sure he's still got plenty that he hasn't seen yet.

He turns, and sure enough, Sam's got a bitch face pasted on. It's a toss-up between #45 (Really Dean? Was that really necessary?) #76 (I cannot believe you would do that, you asshat) and a new one that he's us going to affectionately deem #154 ( Dean leave Cas alone before he remembers he can smite your ass)

Yeah, he really should've stayed asleep this morning.

"What? I can't tease Cas a little? Take it easy man," he says, hands held up in surrender. He doesn't need one of Sam's lectures now. Not this early in the morning. Sam's lectures always lead to talking about feelings, no matter the topic they started off with. Dean Winchester doesn't do feelings. Feelings are for girls and people who weren't hunters as far as he's concerned. The only things he gets to feel nowadays, are shame, fear, guilt and the occasional lust thrown in for good measure. And Sam doesn't count, is the only exception to the rule in his world. Sammy is family.

Bobby too, but Bobby understands. And well, Cas falls into a category all his own. Cas is special. He can tease Cas and know that everything will be cool, because Cas doesn't really get feelings. He gets impressions of feelings. He knows loyalty. Fondness. Camaraderie. Anger. He doesn't grasp anything more complex. And Dean is more than fine with that. It's a relief actually, to not have to worry about those things with him. Although sometimes it would be nice to have someone to talk to that isn't Sam, he thinks. He frowns. That's fucking random.

Sam's face softens fractionally after a minute, and Dean knows that they're ok again. For the most part, (Sams lectures being the exception) he and Sam are mostly past words. They can communicate almost as well with looks.

"Ok, I'm gonna go dig up a job or something," Sam says eventually, and Dean nods gruffly in approval.

"I'm gonna go back to bed then. Doubt I'll get back to sleep, but it's worth a try." He muses, and Sam rolls his eyes before he goes to dig through his duffle-bag for his laptop. Dean goes to his bed, still unmade, and flops down. He sighs contentedly, and tucks his hands beneath his head. It's not often that he gets to relax. It's nice once in a while.

He lets his mind wander, closing his eyes, as he visits memories of better times. He really learned to appreciate memories when he was on the rack. They were the one thing Alistair couldn't touch, the one thing that he held onto till the very last day. When he gave in, he had felt like he'd had lost the right to those memories, and subsequently, he'd lost access to them. When Cas had pulled him up, raised him from perdition, the memories had come back too, as if plucking him out of hell weren't a present in and of itself. They were spliced in with his memories from hell, some tainted and lost, but there were still a handful of good ones left. He usually thinks about them before he drifts off, and it's become a ritual of his, to think about them when he wants to sleep.

His first kiss, with a girl whose name he no longer remembers, but whose eyes were such a vivid shade of amber they put whiskey to shame. The feeling of his first successful hunt by himself. Makeshift Christmases with stolen presents and convenience store gifts. Setting off fireworks with Sam, lighting up the night on the side of some highway. These were his selfish things, the things that he allowed himself to take a modicum of momentary pleasure in.

Eventually he finds himself thinking about Cas. Actually, it's more Cas' new vessel that he starts considering. She was a pretty thing. It's uncanny how much she had looked like Jimmy; same dark hair, messy curls, same pale skin. Same blue eyes...although he believed those were more Cas than anything. No real person had eyes that shade of impossible blue. It must be an angel thing.

He'd only been teasing Cas with the flirting, but the more he thought about it, the more he lingers on it, the less sure he is about it only being nonchalant. It's been a long time since he's even thought about sex. He has no time for it. The closest he's come to thinking about it was a couple of weeks back when he'd thought about Lisa, while in the shower. He'd beaten off to the image of her, spread out beneath him, moaning his name, but it hadn't been as satisfying as he'd wished. Since then, jerking off had become a mechanical sort of thing, there only for the modicum of stress relief it provided. It wasn't even all that pleasant anymore, and if that wasn't a fucking shame then he didn't know what was.

So it sort of surprises him that this vessel could do the trick for him. If the thought of Lisa couldn't even get him going, someone he thought he might've actually loved, why should this girl be different? Someone he just met, and yet he feels a twist of something in his stomach. Something akin to desire, or at least a strange familiarity. Comfort. Maybe he should ask Cas to give him her number after he gets Jimmy back.

Succinctly, he thinks maybe he could just fuck her now, while she's still around, instead of waiting. The other half of his brain, the half that's functioning properly still, slams on the brakes and he sits upright. WHOA WHOA WAIT WHAT THE FUCK!? Where did that come from!? Cas is in there. Cas. His friend. His guy friend, and an angel at that! Angel of The Lord. How could he even consider that!? Besides! He wasn't gay...he wasn't homophobic or anything, he just...

He was a ladies man dammit! He liked women! He always had! His reputation preceded him in some states for the love of everything sacred. He'd never been interested in a guy.

The traitorous half if his brain disagrees vehemently. It produces half a dozen examples of Dean and attraction of some sort, and lays them out for Dean to see. The siren back in Iowa, Nick, who seduced him in a way that wasn't completely...not sexual. That guy who reversed aged from 60 something to 24 again. Dean had certainly gotten an eyeful checking for a birthmark, and honestly? He hadn't really minded. Who can forget about Gabriel and his Dr. Sexy incident? Dean was a major fanboy, although he'd never admit it, and Sam sometimes still teases him about blushing.

And of course there was the whole Oberon, King of the Faeries thing. Sometimes Dean's not sure if what he remembers is dream or real, but either way, he was temporarily the Faerie Kings favourite, and for a reason.

Then his brain starts in on Cas. The Cas he knows, in his borrowed body, an all the moments that they've shared...

No. Dean shakes his head violently. He's not going there, not doing this. He swings his legs off the bed and stalks over to the fridge, grabbing a beer out if it's depths. He hesitates, before grabbing the whiskey as well, putting them on the counter. He rinses out a glass, still sticky from previous use, and pours himself two or three fingers, and downs it in one go, before pouring more. It burns down his throat, settles heavy in his stomach, and from across the room, he hears Sam grunt in disdain.

Dean doesn't grace him with an answer, or even a look. He just swallows again, the sting of the whiskey a little less pronounced than his first gulp. He caps the whiskey, cracks his beer, and sits back on the bed, the familiar warmth of alcohol suffusing him, and making his brain shut off. He plans on getting a good buzz going, enough to make him forget everything he was just thinking of.

He can't be second guessing his own personality along with everything else he's got on his plate. His sexuality isn't up for debate.

Sam looks like he wants to say something, but wisely, does not, and Dean sighs.

So much for more sleep.


End file.
